


the sands of life shall run (and still)

by xerampelinae



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blade of Marmora Keith (Voltron), Canonical Minor Character Death, Feral Behavior, M/M, intimacy porn, playing fast and loose with canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-18
Updated: 2018-09-18
Packaged: 2019-07-13 20:54:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16025798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xerampelinae/pseuds/xerampelinae
Summary: “When I was eight, the scouts came back,” Keith says, voice shifting to something clinical. Like if this is a report he can make it through without tearing his heart open, leave it more vulnerable than it already is.It happened to someone else,Keith thinks, but that’s not true. He remembers the weave of the shirt his father had been wearing, sometimes wonders that it’s not pressed into his fingers even now, what with how hard he’d been clutching at it before Kolivan had brusquely coaxed him away.“If there had not been a rebel trailing the scout, things on Earth would be very different,” Keith says, voice distant. “But there was. Nothing was transmitted back to the main fleet.”-Keith grows up among the Blade of Marmora and meets Shiro in his days as a Gladiator.





	the sands of life shall run (and still)

**Author's Note:**

> This is very self-indulgent. It is also the longest thing I've written outside of original fiction.

The boy is eight when something that cannot be a meteor cuts through the sky to search through the desert. He will not see the ship that follows later; it will be too late to save his father. 

The fight sets the house ablaze; it is fire season and the house isolated by open tracts of desert. Those that come searching will find the burnt shell of the home and the untouched workshop. They will puzzle over the missing bodies of father and son, and conclude that they fled and fell to the extremities of the terrain or its wildlife, remains scattered across unknown distances.

The truth is this: happenstance draws a search back to a forgotten planet, trailed by another. The boy’s father dies protecting a secret. The boy fights desperately but with only an inherited knife and fledgling skill. He is saved by the pursuing ship.

“Where are your guardians?” the boy hears.

He clings to his father’s corpse and admits he has none left. The pilot makes his approach then, dispelling the strange mask. He’s just as inhuman as the pilot of the first ship but that does not mean that he is the same.

“My name is Kolivan,” the pilot says. “I will find you safe harbor--” the boy chokes on a sob and clutches closer to his father, “or you may come with me, if you wish.”

The boy cries but he lets the pilot pick him up and carry him away from the scene of destruction. “My name is Keith,” the boy whispers after his tears have soaked through the shoulder of the pilot’s clothing, and Kolivan knows that he will not travel back into the stars alone.

-

Deep within the Galran empire a soldier receives a coded message. _X-9-Y mission. Precious cargo recovered._

At her officer’s terminal Krolia closes her eyes and burns.

-

Keith grows up in the care of the Blade of Marmora. What he learns of his mother is this: she is too deeply imbedded on a high risk mission for any kind of meaningful contact. Kolivan was her brother in arms, one whom she’d trained alongside and had trained younger Blades with. Keith’s future is his mother’s greatest objective, to the extent that she has foregone years, even a future with him. It is a strange thing for a child who’d thought himself abandoned to learn.

This is what Keith learns of the Blades: many, but not all of them are Galran hybrids. “Some come to us because of injustice,” Kolivan tells Keith, “and others for the sake of their children’s futures.

“The empire does not take kindly to the blood of mixed waters.”

Keith knows then that he will never be sent to hide within the ranks of the empire’s soldiers. He looks too much of his human father; except for his inherited knife and the way Galran biosensors respond to his genetic code, Keith could easily be taken as human. And humans are a pre-contact species: Keith may only be a cog in the machine, or a knife in the dark when he is grown and trained.

That will be enough, Keith tells himself. To be useful is enough.

Then they put him in the cockpit of a craft. The rest, they say, is history.

-

Keith’s not even on a mission when he is taken. It’s not unknown that the Galra take freely of local populations: the intriguing, the beautiful, the entertaining. To find another half-breed for Prince Lotor’s collection is one way to gain favor in high places, even if from exile half the time.

The soldiers overwhelm Keith quickly, to his shame. To his fear, he’s brought before the Emperor’s witch.

“He must be of the Champion’s primitive species,” the witch says. “This may well serve two purposes.”

“High Priestess Haggar?” a druid asks.

“Perhaps this will break the Champion free from his foolish attachments,” the witch says. Keith struggles futilely until a sentry strikes him in the ribs, stunning him enough to finally knock him unconscious with its rifle.

-

He’s barely aware when he’s dropped into a cell. He hears the witch say something in a low, creaking voice before a crackling burst of energy passes overhead. Keith lays very still at a long, guttural sound of pain and the door sealing shut behind him, gathering his energy.

“You’re human,” Keith says when the pain recedes enough that he can sit up and take in the cell’s other occupant.

“So are you,” the man says, face lit up with tension. 

“Half,” Keith admits.

“That means they haven’t invaded yet--?” the man says.

Keith shakes his head. “Not that I know of, I haven’t been there in--in years,” he says, tripping over his tongue to use a word that he hadn’t used in a long time. Spacefarers were all about ticks and quintants and decaphoebs, he’d found.

“Oh,” the man says. “It sounds like you’ve been out here longer than I have.”

“Probably,” Keith says, curling in on himself in discomfort. He can’t remember hearing his ribs crack or not--without peeling himself painfully out of the prison garb, he won’t be able to do a visual examination, and he doesn’t know enough to do an examination by hand--only the ceaseless ache and how hard it is to breathe. He forces himself into as deep of breaths as he can manage; pneumonia won’t help him survive. “It’s been a long time since I saw anyone human-shaped.”

The man laughs. “Right back at you,” he says. “My name’s Shiro, I was piloting a research mission to Kerberos when we were taken. Three of us--Commander Holt, and his son Sam.

“We were separated and I don’t know where they are now,” Shiro admits.

“My name is Keith,” he says. “I was on a trader’s moon looking for dinner when I was taken.”

“Did you get it?”

“Hm?” Keith says.

“Dinner,” Shiro repeats. “Did you get to eat it?”

“No,” Keith says, laughing a little. “But it wasn’t looking to be a very good one anyways.”

Shiro laughs with him.

-

Sometimes sentries come for Shiro--to fight in the arena, or worse, to go before the witch or her druids--but they never come for Keith. He can’t shape the reasons for that. If he knew why, maybe he’d be a little less afraid.

All Keith can do is wait.

-

Shiro never stops looking for an escape route. They don’t talk about it, but. They catch each other counting sentry movements, the time it takes for the doors to open. How often the fights happen--irregularly--and how often the druids send their summons--too often.

It’s not a hopeful situation, but they haven’t given up yet.

-

“Tell me about your ship,” Keith says, in the lonely, lucky hours when their captors forget about them. They’re sitting close, arms just brushing. This is what they do when they have the time: rest, calisthenics, share the meager rations, and talk. “Last I heard, we weren’t that far out yet.”

“She was a hardy little shuttle,” Shiro says. “I’ll never forget the day I finally saw her, waiting for me on the launchpad.

“We were supposed to be the first that far out, but I guess if you’ve made it this far out--”

“Doesn’t count,” Keith says with a shake of his head that makes him feel very young. “You’re the first pilot to man a craft so far from home.”

“Where was home?” Shiro asks.

“My dad was a firefighter for the Galaxy Garrison,” Keith says. “We lived in the desert by it, in the states.”

“That’s where I trained,” Shiro says, lighting up at this shared connection. “The stars are beautiful out there. You can see them when you go out there.”

“Oh,” Keith says. “We used to watch the stars together. I’d forgotten.”

Shiro reaches out and tucks Keith under his arm, all firm, warm muscle. Keith goes easily and nestles close when Shiro settles down. The first time they’d done this was the second time they settled down to sleep, when Keith’s ribs had swollen and throbbed so much he couldn’t fathom the thought of lying down. Shiro had leaned against the wall of their shared cell and quietly, gently, sheltered Keith in the lines of his body. It was a comforting action far beyond simple sharing of body heat on a ship set to the comfort of furred Galra or to be the one soft thing in a space composed only of hard things. Keith finds himself greedy for the contact now.

“I can’t cook American food, no matter how much I enjoy it, ” Shiro says. “My grandfather taught me all the tradition foods, back home in Japan, but. Sometimes I worry that I’m forgetting how to make summer pickles, or how to make sukiyaki from scratch.”

“Those sound amazing,” Keith says.

“Thanks,” Shiro says, glancing down at Keith. “Maybe I can make some for you--someday.”

They fall into silence at that--not quite hopeless, but not hopeful. They have no guarantee of escape or rescue; Earth’s technology cannot hope to beat the Galra, and even if the Blades knew where Keith was, his future is not and cannot be a priority.

“You’ll have to make them all for me, then,” Keith says finally, repeating himself when Shiro stares at him in shock. “So you know that you still remember them all.”

“It’s a promise,” Shiro says, and they sit like that together until the sentries come for Shiro again.

-

When he comes back, Shiro’s being dragged by sentries and his forelock has burned white. The effect of quintessence is so strong that Keith can almost taste it on his tongue like ozone.

Then Shiro’s being dropped and Keith’s scrambling closer, hands probing for any other injuries. Nothing, but Shiro doesn't rouse. Keith settles in to wait.

-

Keith snaps awake, sensing some threat beyond the cell. It's the witch.

”Awaken, Champion,” she hisses.

Tucked in the corner of the room under Shiro’s weight, Keith finds himself trapped--he’s strong enough to lift Shiro, except dead weight is harder to maneuver and the angle is awkward--as Shiro comes snarling awake, knocking Keith to the floor.

Shiro’s eyes burn yellow. He doesn’t stop snarling with open mouth until the witch has enough.

“Silence, insolent thing,” the witch spits, and sends a ball of crackling energy at Shiro. He hunkers down, a sudden solid heat pressed over Keith’s back, low enough to dodge the worst of the attack. Keith could count Shiro’s heartbeats like this, panicked but strong. Could almost hear the opening of valves and forceful flood of blood through each chamber. “See how that treats you.”

Keith counts the witch’s footsteps until he can hear them no more, shaking with fear under Shiro’s solid bulk. He’d thought that Shiro would be okay, but if Shiro was down and out for the count again--

“--Shiro?” he says, cheek pressed into the smooth floor.

The only answer is a deep, bass rumble. Keith can hear it and feel it reverberating in his own lungs, has to close his eyes briefly against how disconcerting it feels. Kolivan had mentioned some of the variance in Galran characteristics once and Keith had to very seriously avoid asking if some Galra phenotypes were more or less space cats. Describing and discussing cats with Kolivan were labors for a much stronger and better person than Keith.

Anyways, Keith has always taken after his father, too human to show his Galran blood. Maybe in the face of great stress or emotional duress, Kolivan has suggested.

Bracing himself against, Keith forces himself up against the solid weight covering him from nape to knee, wondering what will yield first. In the end it’s the weight: Keith rises to his elbows and knees and turns enough to see Shiro peering curiously down at him.

“Shiro?” he asks. The yellow eyes answer his question; the Shiro that Keith has come to know is not present, is buried somewhere beneath the witch’s casting. At least, Keith hopes that he is. That Shiro will find his back to himself. “Are you--”

To ask Shiro if he’s alright when words are beyond him seems, well, inappropriate. It seems impolite to ask if Shiro _were_ aware on some level beneath everything.

“It’s alright, Shiro,” Keith says instead. “I’m here for you.”

Shiro chirps and rubs his cheek against Keith’s, a surprisingly smooth glide of skin until the barest rasp of stubble begins. Keith knows that Shiro maintains a clean-shaven face and the brevity of his undercut with military devotion: he only has scant amounts of time between receiving weapons to fight and entering the arena and yet manages to maintain his appearance. It sparks the memory of some of his pop’s old buddies, who maintained exacting haircuts years out of the military. Keith hasn’t thought of them in a long time.

And Shiro--well, parts of Keith have been curious. The Blades are economical in terms of physical contact. There is not much room for physical affection in their ranks. It was a fearful spectre at times: desired but only in certain ways. 

Kolivan, who had cared for Keith for so long, was much of the same. Privately, Keith was sure Kolivan had had minor to no contact with any pre-adolescent organisms and did not blame him. Keith had received shelter and steady care and was sufficiently satisfied as to not press for more. Shiro on the other hand--it was easy to touch and be touched by him. To want and to give.

In his altered state, Shiro is as affectionate as a cat with its chosen human. Once satisfied with scent-marking Keith’s face, Shiro flops bodily down onto Keith. His body runs hotter like this, trying to shed the witch’s magic. Keith shifts and Shiro shifts him back. It takes a few passes of this exchange before Keith realizes that Shiro is keeping the door in his line of sight and Keith tucked under his body, to present a smaller profile and therefore a smaller target.

Keith sighs and settles into a more comfortable state.

-

He awakens as he’s dragged backwards, sheltered in the inner curve of Shiro’s body. A growl vibrates right through his chest. Keith glances up just fast enough to catch sight of the witch before looking down again. Nothing good comes from her attention.

“You will fight, Champion,” the witch says. Sentries sweep in to grasp at Shiro, lifting his resisting weight easily. For a moment Keith is dragged up with Shiro, but then this feral version of Shiro seems to realize that he’s being taken somewhere the normal Shiro hoped Keith would never end up. Keith muffles the noise he makes as he falls into a jumble on the floor, scrambling to the door as it shuts. Shiro growls as he’s marched away and Keith’s heart twists.

“Interesting,” the witch says, looking through the cell’s narrow window at him.

Keith has no time to scream before the witch’s magic hits.

-

There’s a medical officer watching Keith through the window when he regains consciousness. There’s an oddness to it: not like the weight of the gaze of the Galran officer who’d seen Keith and thought to offer him to the empire, but something more like Kolivan’s. Like there’s a part of Keith he recognizes but will not identify or elaborate.

Keith wonders if this is an imbedded Blade, if this will be one who will be forced to watch as Keith endures and endures until finally he dies, for the sake of his cover and the mission. Keith has known heroism his whole life; this, like those who are left behind, is one part of the mission that is harder to tolerate. All Keith can hope is to conceal the shape and breadth of his knowledge long enough to die with it.

The cell door opens and Shiro stumbles in. He’s bleeding from a cut along his face and a few other places on his body; the prosthetic is smeared past the wrist with green blood, still drying. Keith watches the medical officer’s eyes shutter and the door seal itself again, and then he has more tangible issues to deal with.

“Shiro?” Keith murmurs, heart hammering. If Shiro’s hurt--in his current state, he might not be able to communicate that.

The growl drops from Shiro’s chest suddenly and he looks up at Keith. His eyes still burn yellow but for Keith, at least, he regains his old kindness. His trust. Shiro noses in close, cheek brushing Keith’s before his tongue darts out unexpectedly to taste Keith’s fear sweat and he whines.

“It--it’s okay, Shiro,” Keith stammers, wrapping his arms gingerly around Shiro’s broad shoulders. Tries to soothe without causing more pain. No doubt there are injuries beyond what Keith can see, hidden beneath the prisoner’s garb they both wear: old bruises and new, half-healed cuts, aching scars. “We’re going to be okay.”

Shiro stares at him, yellow eyes hooded, and says nothing.

-

The medical officer freezes to find Keith intact and tucked in between Shiro’s arms and legs. Maybe it’s that he’s where he is and still clothed, thinks the suspicious part of Keith’s brain that has gone through puberty and survived the wholly unexpected inheritance of the epic poetry that apparently passes as erotica in the empire. 

(There was a surprising amount about entering the marital home and leaving all prior attachments behind--it had seemed _personal,_ Keith remembers thinking. Also what he can only think of as werewolf porn. Instincts and loyalty are very important Galran values.)

Or maybe it’s that Keith’s still alive at all.

Whatever the reason, Shiro starts growling before the door opens and presses down and forward until Keith is forced down beneath him again. With exception to the circumstances, it’s actually a comfort, Keith safe and secure under Shiro’s bulk. The analytic part of Keith’s brain worries what the witch’s spell is intended to do--reduce to berserker instincts? Perhaps. Leaving Keith within Shiro’s cell, where he might feel driven to defense, possibly to torture him with the result--the Galra left them alone together for too long, they have grown too attached.

The remnants of violence may have been what the medical officer expected but are what he failed to find. Now, instead of entering the cell to remove a corpse and treat the surviving prisoner, he merely rolls in a sealed jar and disappears behind the door again.

Shiro shifts back more easily this time. Keith hopes it’s because the spell is wearing off, but he’ll take what he can get. Nervously he talks his way through his actions, as if Shiro is actively listening to his instructions and will help him. Like he’s a Blade that has known enough danger to sometimes forget his current safety, who must be grounded as he’s helped.

“Alright, Shiro,” Keith says, “it smells like a sort of--antimicrobial gel. It’ll sting a little, but it’s better than leaving things to chance. It’ll help with healing, too.”

Shiro chirps and sways forward to rub his cheek against Keith’s. The brush of new beard is softer now, grown in a little like the undercut. Keith slides his cheek against Shiro’s, sighing.

It’s not quite easy to attend to Shiro’s injuries; barring the fact that all they have are Keith’s fingers and the gel, Shiro doesn’t exactly cooperate. When Keith’s fingers probe a cut, Shiro grits his teeth and tenses but luckily does not snap at him. When Keith tries to find a new approach for an injury, Shiro follows him like he’s the sun and all Shiro wants is to lovingly orbit around him.

There is nothing that Keith can do against it, not even become frustrated. Eventually, he’s satisfied with his efforts and lets himself slump down. Shiro hums and wraps his arms snugly around Keith, legs shifting up a little to cage him in. Keith realizes abruptly that he’s sat across Shiro’s lap, nose tucked into the tender curve of Shiro’s neck. It’s a much different experience than sitting in his pop’s lap as a kid, though it is oddly comforting.

It’s hard to say whether Shiro is recovering from the witch’s spell or not, Keith muses. “I’m glad to be here with you,” he murmurs aloud. “Even if you never come back, we’ll figure it out.”

Shiro chirps at that. They stay clustered together until their rations arrive and Keith has to retrieve them.

-

He knows what the empire does to its prisoners, what it forces them to become to survive. Shiro is as kind as he can be. Too kind, perhaps, to a stranger whose face is more human than he is. They fit together in a way that doesn’t make sense with the situation. But. It’s kind. It’s singleminded affection from someone who Keith has already come to admire. He’s helpless against it. 

Shiro has won Keith’s loyalty with honest kindness--he knows that if they try to escape, it will be together--and Keith will lay down his life before he lets the empire further harm Shiro.

-

Time and again the sentries take Shiro and return him later, sometimes injured and often covered in blood that even Keith, who has travelled the Empire, cannot identify from its color.

This Shiro, with his glowing eyes, does not remember to wash the blood away or treat his wounds. So Keith does it for him, hands gentle but firm when Shiro presents token resistance. In turn, Keith doesn’t resist when they’re done washing up and Shiro pulls him close in the cold cell.

“You’re okay,” Keith says, pressing an absent kiss to Shiro’s temple. Leans against Shiro’s broad, damp chest. Warm despite the cold air. He hopes his words aren’t a lie. He hopes. Shiro hums reassuringly to him all the same.

-

“I don’t know how long Galra live,” Keith admits to Shiro. “There’s nothing that shows a successor to the Emperor Zarkon that destroyed the Alteans, at the beginning of the diaspora, he could be the same Emperor Zarkon that rules now. Even--even my guardian will not say his age.

“It’s too long,” Keith says. “It’s like they’ve been changed by something--by exposure to concentrated quintessence--that acts as an in vivo mutagen. Like radiation. The faces of the Galra have changed and--it must have been thousands of years but I can pick the same names out across the annals of the Empire if I look.”

Shiro blinks up at Keith from where he’s draped across his lap. Yellow-eyed but sober. Tactile but unintrusive. Listening, even if not understanding.

“The Galra homeworld was lost,” Keith says. “That much is known. They say there was great betrayal and Zarkon won a future for us in blood and battle but--the empire grows. It’s hungry for it. It won’t stop. I don’t know what it means, if it’s because no one dies except because of violence. If the empire will always be starving because only its soldiers die, no one else.”

Shiro has nothing to say to this.

“I don’t know why I’m talking about this,” Keith admits, sighing, shoulders set low like they might be accepting a posting under Atlas’ great responsibilities. “Even if you do understand me, a history lesson on a species that enslaved you and that will never fully accept me isn’t what you need.”

Hand settling at Keith’s nape, Shiro squeezes gently at the soft hair there. Keith lets himself be soothed.

-

It’s weakening, Keith thinks, but maybe that’s wishful thinking. He’s been trying to talk more, like Shiro can understand. Whatever their future, Keith refuses to treat Shiro as something mindless. People sleep curled together, sit together and touch casually, Keith thinks, but forgets the reasons why people do so.

“Keith,” Shiro breathes one morning when Keith’s ribs barely ache, and when Keith turns in his arms his eyes are a soft brown again. Then the sentries come. 

They take Keith too this time. It’s a change--he’s been treated as an afterthought until now, a variable they expected to die upon introduction to their experiment--and Keith doesn’t know if it’s because the witch’s spell has just worn off or if the witch even knows yet. It seems almost worse that it’s so soon after Shiro’s recovered from the witch’s casting.

“You took my hand, what more do you want--?” Shiro cries, panicked and struggling against his bonds. Keith struggles just as futilely but more silently.

The sentries sedate Shiro but, under the medical officer’s orders, only enough to mute his struggles. Then the sentries are dismissed.

“Zarkon has located the Blue Lion on your planet Earth. You must get it before he does,” the medical officer says, once they are alone, freeing them and handing Keith his blade--his heart constricts at that, he’d had no knowing even of when he’d lost track of it, this memento of a mother he hasn’t known since infancy, even this side of the stars--and urging them to the shuttles.

“What are you doing?” Shiro says as he rouses, leaned between Keith and the medical officer. 

“I've planted a bomb to cover your escape. Get to a pod, now.”

“Who are you?” Shiro asks. Keith sets his mouth, curious to what the medical officer will say, if his theory is correct.

"I am Ulaz. Now, come on! Zarkon will know that I released you, so I must disappear. But, if you survive, go to the coordinates in your arm. The Blade of Marmora is with you."

"Why are you helping me?" Shiro asks, even as his feet move unsurely under him. He leans heavily into Keith.

"As a fighter and a leader, you give hope,” Ulaz says, eyes calculatedly sliding over Keith. “Hurry! Earth needs you. We all do."

Shiro and Keith go.

-

Shiro passes out as the escape pod cuts a determined path through space. It’s a side effect of the sedation, Keith is sure, but it still nurtures a worried spark in his chest. Still, Shiro’s breathing is as easy as it usually is and his heart beats with slow but steadfast time.

Frowning, Keith turns determinedly to the pod’s controls, de-activating the autopilot guiding them back to Earth. There had been a certain finality to leaving, _before_ ; Keith hadn’t been sure that he would ever return. Even the familiar desert hadn’t felt like it could be home after his pop had died. 

Now, though. Keith sits in the pilot’s seat and cuts a more efficient path through open space, slingshotting the pod forward with the gravity of various planetary bodies. Keith traces the burnt shell of his old house and the untouched shape of the workshop preserved in his memory, wonders briefly whether the desert had reclaimed them; and then his thoughts turn worriedly back to Shiro.

They haven’t had time to talk about what the witch did. What it meant to Shiro to have his body turn against him, to be made into something knife-sharp for his survival, for the amusement of a capricious crowd.

Keith hopes the memories won’t hurt Shiro too much, and turns his thoughts back to the stars.

-

Earth has an easy atmosphere for entry. Even in a craft with relatively minimal maneuvering--it’s no fighter jet, but it’s more than a life raft driven only by a single paddle--entry is nothing flashy. Keith’s landing isn’t his strongest, but he’s confident that he does a decent job; he’s seen holovids where, by mishandling or the imprecision of autopilots, escape pod docking occurs by punching a hole in the side of the rescue vessel.

Keith knows this desert, at least. He _knows_ it.

Shiro is still unconscious when Keith looks back and makes the decision to turn away from the Blue Lions’ coordinates and its lonely call. However quickly their pursuers set out for them, Keith knows that his piloting shaved time off of their travel. Instead he flies the escape pod low to the ground as the landmarks grow more familiar, carefully hiding it beneath the tree that has grown to further dwarf his father’s workshop. The desert has consumed the rest of his old house.

The workshop is barebones, but the wooden frame Keith’s pop had intended to be Keith’s bed when he grew more is still there. It holds when Keith tests it with his weight, and still when Keith maneuvers Shiro’s loose-limbed weight onto it.

For a moment Keith sits there beside Shiro, sighing and running his hands through hair that spills messily past his shoulders now. Then he forces himself up: first to retrieve the pod’s emergency supplies, then to evaluate the workshop. It’s not nothing; some of his dad’s clothes, set aside for whatever reason.

Keith hadn’t taken anything of his father’s when he’d left, not really. The knife had been his mother’s--his dam, as the Galra would say--and the house had burned, and Keith had been far from it by the time he’d met Kolivan. Now, though. Keith searches through the boxes. Some are possible survivors of his pop’s teenage years, still long and loose when Keith sheds the prison garb, but wearable. Still others Keith recognizes and knows will better fit Shiro.

Shiro is still asleep, as he has been whenever Keith checks. Sighing, Keith settles down against Shiro to share his body’s heat as the desert’s cold creeps in through the cracked walls. Keith palms his knife, unwilling to be parted from it. They sleep.

-

A floorboard creaks on the front steps of the workshop and Keith flies awake, unsheathing and activating his knife, landing heavily but surely on the floor as the door swings open.

“Whoa--” someone yelps as the leader springs back in shock.

Keith stares them down, eyes adjusting to the dim light. Moonlight frames the intruders: three adolescent humans. “Who are you?” Keith grits out.

“We’re just--just students at the Garrison,” the short one says. “Who are you?”

“Can you maybe think about putting that sword down?” the big guy asks.

Keith considers answering, but then the bed behind him creaks and answers for him. “Keith?” Shiro says, sitting up. “What’s going on?”

“What the heck?” says the short one.

“That’s--” the skinny one gapes, “--you’re Shiro! The pilot of the Kerberos Mission!”

“Guess he’s not dead after all,” the big guy says. Keith glares at him.

“Where’s the rest of your crew?” the short one asks.

“Why don’t we start from the top and go one by one,” Shiro says. “It’s okay, Keith, I think we can trust them.”

For a beat Keith holds his ready stance, evaluating. The three are untrained; that’s clear even without them identifying themselves as students. Between his fighting skills and Shiro’s, it is unlikely that they will be a problem, should the issue come. Finally, Keith nods stiffly and straightens, allowing his blade to shrink and be sheathed.

The students gape.

-

“Why did you come out here?” Shiro asks.

“The Garrison caught some readings of your--” the big guy (Hunk?) gulps “-- _alien spacecraft_ but couldn’t track it. But Pidge here’s equipment did and he had the idea of tracking real-time through satellites, and here we are, terrible team bonding activities ongoing.”

Shiro and Keith exchange looks at this. Keith knows his face is a mask of poorly concealed confusion and Shiro’s isn’t much better.

“Did anyone else from your crew make it out?” the short one (Pidge) asks.

“I'm not sure,” Shiro admits. “I remember the mission and being captured and on an alien ship. After that, it's just bits and pieces. I don’t remember much of escaping.”

“Yeah, sorry to interrupt,” Hunk says, eyes a little wild, “but back to the aliens. Where are they now? Are they coming? Are they coming for us? Like--where are they at this very moment?”

“I can't really put it together,” Shiro says with a shrug, Keith silent and steady beside him. “I remember the word ‘Voltron.’ It's some kind of weapon they're looking for, but I don't know why. Whatever it is, I think we need to find it before they do.”

Pidge, the short one, nods. “I’ve been scanning transmissions and the readings tonight are off the charts. It was definitely something about a Voltron.”

“That sounds right,” Shiro says.

-

“Outside,” Keith orders, hand closed around the bundle of his father’s clothes.

“Do you live here?” Lance asks, nose wrinkling.

“It’s a workshop,” Keith says evenly. “What do you think?”

“Let’s just go,” Hunk says nervously, and shuffles Pidge and Lance out the door.

“Why does he get to stay--” Lance says, voice sharp and reedy, then the door finally latches solid and loud.

Keith turns to Shiro and finds him looking back already, face softening.

“Do--do you want me to go?” Keith asks softly, feeling pinned down by Shiro’s gaze.

“No,” Shiro says just as softly, with a shake of his head. Deliberately, Shiro pulls off the overshirt as he turns around, dipping his head and throwing the zipper along his spine into relief. Keith exhales lightly before moving close enough to grasp the zipper pull and reveal progressive inches of strong back, lined with scars. 

Shiro shivers and Keith realizes he’s too close, he’s breathing against Shiro’s back. “Sorry,” he manages to say, jolting backward. 

Before Keith can get too far away, Shiro’s reaching back and catching his wrist. “It’s alright,” Shiro says, voice choked. Hesitantly, Keith lets his arms circle Shiro’s waist as he steps in close. Shiro shivers again, but it could be the cold desert air as much as anything else; Keith gathers his courage and steps in closer still, resting his forehead between Shiro’s shoulder blades.

“I have you,” Keith whispers, tightening his hold on Shiro. They breathe together like that--one breath, then a second--before Shiro’s arms rise and settle over Keith’s and tuck them more closely around himself.

They stand together until Lance’s whining becomes audible through the door and Shiro reluctantly releases Keith’s arms and Keith steps back.

“Where did these come from?” Shiro murmurs as Keith drags the bodysuit down his arms, past his hips, then kneels to help Shiro step out of it.

“They were my pop’s,” Keith says. “I hope they fit okay.”

“Keith,” Shiro says, and it’s a little gentle and tender for Keith to deal with right now. They’ve seen each other undressed by necessity--the cell wasn’t that big, they were lucky enough that the Galra’s sensitive noses and Shiro’s status as a favored Gladiator allocated them to a cell with running water--but it’s different when lit by a lonely moon. It’s different outside the narrow span of circumstance in which they met. “This is--”

“It’s more than I thought I had of him,” Keith admits. “You’re the only one who could do it justice.”

Shiro reaches out and draws Keith in by the back of his neck, brushing their cheeks together reassuringly. In the dim light Shiro’s eyes are half-lidded and human tones cast into darkness. Keith shuts his eyes and leans into Shiro for a moment. Then he backs away.

“Better get dressed,” Keith says, watching Shiro startle slightly as he notices the chill. “Be terrible for you to catch cold.”

-

“Would you know how to shave me?” Shiro asks. “With that knife of yours?”

Keith looks at his knife, then back up at Shiro. He does know how--has even used his knife that way before, if for a reason that he’s not sure Shiro would benefit from hearing about--so he nods.

“There’s no mirror,” Shiro explains, nervous-sounding. “Otherwise, I could probably have managed it.”

Keith doesn’t have the capacity for facial hair as his father had--or at least, doesn’t have it yet. It was a rare thing to see his pop go from stubble to clean-shaven, but the memory of it is vivid. His pop’s favorite dispatcher had died; she was an old sergeant, another of pop’s longtime friends, who had all gathered in the same area after their military service was completed. (At the wake everyone had laughed just as much as they had cried during the funeral, for Sarge, even if they were crying into their drink too. The Blades don’t grieve anything like that.)

She used to check in on Keith when his pop was on call, when he would stay with another firefighter’s family. He could still recite her phone number if prompted; some things you don’t forget all the way. It was a shock when she died. She’s another person who Keith hasn’t thought of in a long time, whose memory comes knocking now.

“Thank you,” Shiro says when Keith’s done. He’d probably thank him in exactly the same way, Keith thinks, even if he’d nicked his throat in the process. Trustful that Keith wouldn’t harm him deliberately.

It’s the kind of trust that changes a person, Keith think, that sears through everything that came before and after.

“You need to sleep,” Shiro says, perched on the bed frame, after they’ve cleaned up a little. Keith steadfastly refuses to allow Shiro to give up the bed frame for the Garrison students, who are now lying asleep in a heap together against the wall. Shared body heat is a remarkable resource, after all.

“I need to tell you something, Shiro,” Keith says. “You’re home now, you don’t need to be pulled back into this war. I’ll get the Blue Lion off Earth.”

“Keith,” Shiro says patiently. “I don’t remember much from our escape, but you didn’t sleep, did you?”

It’s a deliberate evasion and they both know it. Keith knows then that Shiro will not stay on Earth. That’s not who Shiro is, past or present. Anyways, Shiro’s seen Keith drop off to sleep enough times to know that he can do it in a heartbeat. Reluctantly, Keith shakes his head. This time, Shiro reaches out and guides Keith to lie down beside him, thumb stroking his cheek. Tender. Uncensored. Keith worries that the tactility that the feral Shiro used confuses normal Shiro. 

“Rest,” Shiro says easily. Unconflicted in a way that makes Keith’s heart ache. “Whatever’s coming--sleep will serve us better.”

“Alright,” Keith says, and shuts his eyes. Shiro’s hand moves reassuringly across his cheek until he, too, falls asleep.

-

Morning brings the distant roar of vehicles, and it makes the decision of who’s going in search of the Blue Lion for them.

“They must have backtracked to follow Pidge’s steps through their system,” Hunk suggests as they scramble to gather up what they have. Pidge’s backpack and the bag that comprises the escape pod’s emergency supply kit are stuffed shut and distributed.

“Or--shoot,” Pidge says, “I thought I disabled the car’s tracking, but maybe they did a remote reboot?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Shiro says, and they pile out of the workshop. “Keith?”

“We’ll fit,” Keith says, climbing into the pod. It can carry them a little further.

The rest file in, Shiro moving trustfully to Keith’s back and grabbing onto the rigging on the pod walls as Keith directs, while the others clamor and cluster behind Keith.

“Grab on,” Keith repeats, and fires up the pod. 

“Do you even know how to fly this thing?” Lance yelps, arms swinging wildly before his classmates reach out and tow him over so he can grab the rigging.

“How do you think we got here?” Keith asks, distractedly curious as he checks over the systems. Operational, if low on power. Not enough to flee the Galra again. Enough to fly, if only for so long.

Flying has always come naturally to him; it’s not always easy, but it makes sense in a way that little else does. The students chatter fearfully in shock before they realize Keith knows what he’s doing and settle down.

Piloting anything from the other side of the stars requires a physicality that is matched only on Earth in its bikes. Out in the desert, Keith had been free to ride under his father’s careful eye, once he’d been tall enough to reach all the controls. That’s what he thinks of as he guides the pod as low to the ground as a hoverbike. The coordinates in the pod match the call whispering to Keith, but he pushes back on the thought as he weaves between sand dunes until he can be sure that he’s lost their pursuers--not long, Earth technology is still pre-contact, is light years behind what Keith has become familiar with.

The desert canyons call to Keith, and he obeys.

-

The glyphs depicting lions light up blue under Lance’s hand and then they’re falling through the crumbling remains of the floor. There is no time to linger at the corner of the cave, where the floor is raised and tool markings are hewn into the rock, not even to reach and kneel beside it. The Blue Lion’s particle barrier falls when Lance knocks--of course it’s him, Keith thinks, of course the Blue Lion’s Paladin is someone who is apparently offended by Keith’s existence, never mind that he’s committed to a mission meant to free the universe from a menacing quasi-immortal.

Leaving Earth is instinct as much as anything else: draw the Galra away with this unknown weapon, fight with what weapons they can discover. Kerberos appears and disappears quickly. Then there’s the wormhole, and they’re following it, all the way through to an unfamiliar planet with an unfamiliar castle.

It makes Keith think _ship_ but it’s nothing he recognizes. It’s old.

As old as the Empire, it turns out. And isn’t it a surprise to see that Zarkon’s not the only one to have made it to ten thousand years?

“How long have we been asleep?” the Princess asks, hands bringing the castle to life as Lance and her butler squabble. “It can’t be--”

“Ten thousand years,” she and Keith say together.

“You’ve been asleep for a very long time,” Keith says. 

Everyone goes quiet at that.

“Planet Altea and all of the planets in our solar system have been destroyed,” the Princess says, voice shaking as she desperately studies her monitors, unfurls the thread of narrative, _this is what happened to the universe while you slumbered_. “Coran, Father is gone. Our entire civilization--Zarkon.”

“Zarkon?” Shiro gasps. Remembering, at least a little bit. It worries as much as it reassures Keith.

“He was the King of the Galra,” the Princess spits. “A vile creature and enemy to all free people.”

“I remember now,” Shiro murmurs. “We were his prisoners.”

“He's still alive? Impossible!” the Princess says.

Shiro remains steady. “I can't explain it, but it's true. He's searching for a super weapon called Voltron.”

“He's searching for it because he knows it's the only thing that can defeat him, and that's exactly why we must find it before he does,” the Princess says, determination rising.

-

Alarms blare--a Galra cruiser making its approach.

“How long before they arrive?” Shiro asks, dispelling the venom rising from Lance--Keith wonders idly what garnered his attention and painted a target on his back, if it were _actually_ something before he refocuses on more important and productive topics--and turning to the Alteans.

“At their speed?” Coran says, counting off his fingers distractedly. “Oh, well, carry the two...I'd say probably a couple of days.”

“How are we going to find the rest?” Shiro says thoughtfully.

“King Alfor connected the lions to Allura's life force. She alone is the key to the Lions' whereabouts,” Coran says.

“Whoa,” they all say.

-

The Red Lion is everything the Princess says it will be: temperamental, instinctive, unstable. Things that have been said of Keith as well.

The vacuum of space takes him, and he thinks of his father talking about fire. _It’s just like anything else, Keith,_ his pop would say. _It can destroy, and it can renew. Just another thing you have to respect._

It’s true, Keith thinks, and _I can keep going. I’m not giving up yet._

The Lion’s eyes light up and it swallows Keith.

“Good kitty,” he says. The Lion’s purr rumbles in his chest as the controls settle beneath his hands.

-

They win the battle--their first as Voltron--and it’s nothing like Keith ever imagined, even in the extended contingencies he’s trained with. He would have been honored to have died at Shiro’s side. He knows what it takes to fight the Empire. But it’s worth something to be at Shiro’s side, to be his right arm. To be Shiro’s Galran arm. It feels _right._

“We won the battle, but the war has only just begun,” the Princess says, when they pile out of their Lions. “I'm afraid Zarkon will not stop until he gets these lions.”

Coran beams at them. “Good thing you paladins know what you're doing, because you're going to have to form Voltron again and again.”

“Totally,” Hunk says. “Wait, what?”

-

“What happened to us out there?” Shiro asks, as they sit together in the near dark of his room, stripped down to the undersuits of their armor.

“What do you remember?” Keith asks. Concern tightens like a vise on his heart.

“Not much,” Shiro admits, frowning slightly. “I don’t remember how we met--just that I trust you--and fighting in the Arena.”

Keith takes a deep, steadying breath. Holds it and sighs it out. Nervous. “We didn’t meet until after they first sent you to the Arena. I’m--a half breed. Some things happened when I was a kid and I left Earth, joined a rebel group. I was taken from a trader’s moon and put with you, it was--odd.”

Shiro cocks his head, silently encouraging.

“They didn’t send me out to fight. Never. Just left me with you in the cell. Eventually they put a spell on you that made you,” Keith pauses, searching for words, “different? Wild? I think they expected you to hurt me.”

“Did I?” Shiro’s tone changes, becomes withdrawn.

“No,” Keith says, furiously shaking his head. “Never. You protected me. Even when there was no reason to. Even when they wanted you mindless.”

There’s a long pause while Shiro takes this in. “How did we escape?”

“There was someone from the group that took me in,” Keith says. “A rebel. Someone who’d been planted on that ship. You were sedated, I think that’s what’s affecting your memories.”

“And then we went home?”

“And then we went home.”

Shiro sighs and tows Keith in close under his arm, comforting even as they smell of sweat and leak the heat of physical exertion from the day’s fight. “We need to tell them,” he says.

“I know,” Keith says. They don’t move.

“Tell me?” Shiro asks, gentle-toned. Keith shifts close enough to hear the steady beat of Shiro’s heart and nods.

-

“We need to talk,” Keith says. “All of us.”

“What do you--” the Princess says, then stops, sees Shiro a pace back from Keith. Supportive. Like he’s Keith’s second, not the opposite. “Very well.”

-

“Shiro and I had help when we escaped,” Keith says evenly. “A rebel imbedded on the cruiser freed us, knowing that the Blue Lion had been detected on Earth.”

“You never said how you ended up out in space,” Pidge says. “Or how you know how to pilot--I never saw you at the Garrison or in its records.”

“I didn’t. My dam--my mother, humans would say--came to Earth years ago,” Keith says, eyes low and steadfast. “To protect and conceal the Blue Lion. Over the course of her mission, her ship crashed and she was rescued by a local. Went back to the fight within two years.”

“Within?” Pidge asks.

Keith shrugs. “Relativity of time aside, I was too young to remember.”

“Oh,” the Princess says, voice a shade off of horrified.

“When I was eight, the scouts came back,” Keith says, voice shifting to something clinical. Like if this is a report he can make it through without tearing his heart open, leave it more vulnerable than it already is. _It happened to someone else,_ Keith thinks, but that’s not true. He remembers the weave of the shirt his father had been wearing, sometimes wonders that it’s not pressed into his fingers even now, what with how hard he’d been clutching at it before Kolivan had brusquely coaxed him away.

“If there had not been a rebel trailing the scout, things on Earth would be very different,” Keith says, voice distant. “But there was. Nothing was transmitted back to the main fleet.”

“Why didn’t you stay?” the Princess asks, when the moment hangs in the air and it becomes clear that Keith won’t proceed without prompting.

“Because there was nothing left to keep me there,” Keith says, voice and gaze steady. Waiting.

“What are you getting at?” Lance says, voice prickling with frustration.

“I’m half Galra,” Keith says, “or so. I’ve spent years away from Earth as part of the rebel group that freed us.”

“No--” the Princess says, face twisting in horror and shock.

“Yes,” Shiro says, levelling a stern look at the Princess. His hand settles like a shield on Keith’s shoulder, firm and kind. “I understand that this a surprise to hear but I trust Keith with my life.”

“How can you trust a filthy--” the Princess spits out.

Keith shrinks back, eyes dropping to a bit of wall past her shoulder. Defensive. Ready to take a hit. Shiro’s free hand--the Galran hand--rises quelling and open-handed. Allura goes silent, shaking with fury.

“He saved my life,” Shiro says. “He save all of our lives.”

Then he turns and all but marches out with Keith in a clear dismissal.

-

Keith goes easily when Shiro presses him down into his bed, pulls his jacket and boots off to tuck him into bed before stripping off his own outer layers as well.

“How can you trust me?” Keith whispers, back brushing the wall as he breathes, lying the way he prefers to sleep. “I know you don’t remember.”

Shiro stands still by the bed for a moment before he draws back the covers and climbs in. “Memory is a tricky thing,” Shiro says. “Formation, storage...it turns out that there’s a lot of ways it differs. Amnesia is rarely retrograde, more often anterograde. But there are little things that slip by amnesia. Like emotional memory.”

Keith shuts his eyes, draws up his loose-clenched fists like he can hide behind them, shield the vulnerable beating heart of him behind his ready hands. Shiro’s hands settle loosely over Keith’s. He trembles--for a moment he wonders which of them is scared enough to shake so much. But Keith knows it’s himself, knows that it’s him who’s been re-calibrated by their meeting; he’s a compass forever spinning in search of Shiro, for his true North.

“Would you ever fear me?” Shiro asks. “If I ever went back to being--wild?”

Keith shakes his head silently.

“I remember you,” Shiro whispers, breath gentle on Keith’s hands before he draws them down. Hesitates a moment before pressing a kiss to Keith’s forehead, too gentle for Keith to bear. “I trust you.”

“It’s okay,” Shiro says as Keith sobs. “It’s alright. I have you, Keith.”

-

“Ulaz left coordinates in your arm, didn’t he?” Keith murmurs, face pressed into Shiro’s bicep. The tears have stopped finally, face wiped clean with the cleaner side of a discarded shirt. He still trembles infrequently, wrung out by the intensity of his emotions and the clouded trust of their comrades. “He’s more highly ranked. He’ll have a better idea of what to do.”

“I don’t remember,” Shiro says, fingers brushing soothingly from Keith’s crown to the base of his skull. It’s an unconscious sort of action, easing them slowly towards exhausted sleep. “We’ll have Pidge check in the morning. Rest up, Keith. It’s been a rough day.”

“Alright,” Keith whispers. “You sleep too.”

Shiro’s only response is another pass of his hand over Keith’s head, and another, until sleep steals them both away.

-

The Princess is cold and suspicious in the morning, when they’ve gathered to discuss the coordinates that might be saved in Shiro’s arm--if that’s a false memory laying a trap, if it’s true and maybe worth pursuing, if _Keith_ is personally interfering on a genocidal Galran agenda.

“I’ll be training,” Keith says, eyes flickering over the other Paladins and the Princess. They’re distracted for now, but he has no doubt that they’ll soon have a galaxy’s worth of questions. “I think--that’ll be better.”

“Keith,” Shiro says, a little lost-sounding.

“It’s okay, Shiro,” Keith says.

“No,” Shiro says. “It’s not. But it will be. Just remember: you don’t have to answer their questions. If you don’t feel comfortable. If you don’t want to.”

“How can you trust him?” the Princess asks, voice jagged as fresh-broken glass.

“I don’t remember nearly everything about being the Galra’s prisoner,” Shiro says. “Even things like what happened to Pidge’s family--it’s taken time to remember. But I do remember being vulnerable, and Keith protecting me then.”

“But how can you really be sure?” Lance asks. The room is quiet and still with anticipation; even Pidge’s hands pause. “How can you know that isn’t a complicated ruse by the Galra?”

“A lot of reasons, actually,” Shiro laughs, shaking his head. “Keith wasn’t there for as long as I was, but whatever I ask about that he has answers for? He tells me. And later, he asked me if I wanted to stay.” 

“Yeah?” Hunk says. “When was that?”

“The night before we found the Blue Lion,” Shiro says.

“Oh,” Hunk says.

The entrance to the bridge slides open; from the entryway Keith sends a desperate look over his shoulder before Coran is sufficiently distracted by the sight of the Paladins and his Princess and finally, finally makes his escape.

“I’ve got it!” Pidge says, and looks up, sees the way everyone else seems to have frozen. “What happened?”

-

Keith has never been to the coordinates Ulaz left with Shiro. It’s a beautiful, if dangerous sight: an open field strewn with xanthorium clusters and space dust. The sort of place that sings of potential and energy.

"I don't want to bring the Castle any closer,” Coran says. “Those xanthorium chunks contain highly unstable nitrate salts. Even bumping one of them can blow us straight to Wozblay."

"Are you sure this is right?” Shiro asks. Keith shrugs. “These are the coordinates Number Five gave me."

"Hey!” Pidge yelps. “My decryption is solid."

"There must be something we're missing,” Shiro murmurs.

"We should get out of here,” the Princess says. “We've checked it out, but now, it's time to move on."

"No,” Shiro says, turning again to look at the field. “There must be something more to this. I can feel it. I think we should wait."

-

They’re all still on the bridge when the intruder alarm begins to sound. The Paladins reluctantly deploy--Keith hesitantly, but as much as he hopes this will be Ulaz, the possibility of another party is too great.

Lance loses the intruder first, then Hunk. Pidge manages to engage the intruder, only to be dragged along in his wake. As he runs to intercept them, Keith’s mind runs through possibilities. When he launches himself forward, Keith activates his knife.

Finally, the intruder stops, neatly sidestepping Pidge as she slides forward. Keith swallows down the knot of emotion in his throat at the sight of the familiar Blade’s uniform and sigil.

“Ulaz?” Shiro says, and Keith’s grateful that one of them has the voice to ask that. Their gazes meet and Keith silently withdraws to a ready state.

“Shiro,” Ulaz says. “Young Blade.”

It’s a more open authorization to act as a Blade than Keith’s ever received before. It’s unexpected--he knows the Blades have survived to undermine the Empire as long as they have by operating under great secret. It’s a sign of a changing tide; something will change soon.

Then the Princess is charging down the hallway, as furious and unrelenting as a storm. “Who are you?” she spits, reaching out like she might throw them through a few walls.

"Stop! It's him!” Shiro shouts, moving to shield Ulaz. “This is the Galra who set us free."

The Princess doesn’t even look at Keith for his confirmation, so he forces himself to speak. “He is,” Keith says. “We owe the reformation of Voltron to him--he can help.”

"I will not have some quiznaking Galra soldier on my ship!" the Princess says, and calls for Coran.

Keith’s face twists and suddenly the Princess’ venom is past tolerance. “Ulaz,” he says, voice even and heart going too quickly. “Show them your sword.”

Ulaz raises his blade slowly, held to showcase it, rather than ready for attack.

 _“Really_ show them,” Keith says, and without waiting for Ulaz’s agreement, raises his own blade. They activate their blades simultaneously. “Princess, I understand that you have valid reservations about working with Galra. But you don’t know what we’ve paid to keep Voltron out of Zarkon’s hands while you slept.”

“So,” Lance says, having finally caught up with Hunk, “that isn’t generic alien tech. Space is disappointing.”

“Shut up,” Pidge says.

-

“Have you contacted Kolivan, young Blade?” Ulaz asks as they make the walk to the bridge like they’re walking to their deaths. They might be, if the way the Princess’ gaze burns into their backs feels.

“No,” Keith admits softly. “I could not compromise the security of the Blades.”

“He will be glad to hear of your safety,” Ulaz says.

“Who’s Kolivan?” Shiro asks, moving to keep pace with them. The Princess’ glare kicks up an impossible notch.

“He’s the one who took me in,” Keith says, meeting Shiro’s kind eyes. “He trained me.”

“He sounds like a good man,” Shiro says, and before Keith can reply a derisive snort interrupts them. “You have something to say, Princess?”

“Sorry,” the Princess says, tone biting, “but I find that doubtful.”

For a moment, a roar in Keith’s ears drowns out everything. He stops dead in his tracks, barely feels the brush of Shiro’s shoulder against his when he doesn’t quite stop in time.

“I don’t know what Galra you knew before,” Keith hears himself say, cold and biting as a luxite blade, “but Kolivan is not that kind.

“He didn’t have to take me in, but he offered. He wasn’t the kind of person who left an eight year old to dig his father’s grave alone. He would have kept me from this war if I hadn’t asked to help.”

“What?” the Princess says. Distant. Horrified. 

_Tough cookies,_ the part of Keith’s brain that still remembers his father’s voice growls. The part that doesn’t remember how hard-packed the cave soil was, how Keith hadn’t had the tools to lift or disrupt the earth. How Kolivan had drawn him back so he wouldn’t hurt himself further, had retreated to his ship to find a tool that would work.

Keith looks at the Princess, really looks at her. Makes her meet his gaze for the first time since she found out about his mixed blood. Kolivan was right about more than the Galra: his blood marks him as something wrong, something impure. He feels a little outside of his body, feels a little like the roar in his ears is Red instead of his blood. “I told you before. There was nothing left on Earth to keep me there.”

Shiro’s hand settles on his shoulder, grounding. When Keith looks, Shiro’s looking at the Princess, face hard. “Walk it off, Princess. Get your head clear.”

The Princess turns stiffly and disappears down the corridor like a thundercloud. Coran trails her--Keith doesn’t know when he had arrived. Usually he’s much more aware.

“Lance, Pidge, Hunk: please escort Ulaz to the kitchen and offer him refreshments.”

The others nod and whisk Ulaz off. Hunk distracts him chattering about space goo and questions on Galran cuisine.

“Keith, buddy,” Shiro says, guiding him until he feels the wall at his back and can sink down to the floor, kneels before him. “Are you okay?”

Keith nods numbly.

“Should we--” Shiro stops, unsure. “Do you want to go to Red?”

Keith looks at him, stares without understanding. “Red? What’s wrong with her?”

Shiro looks at him, then shakes his head, loosing the barest puff of laughter. “What’s wrong with--” he says. “Keith, Red’s roaring for you.”

“Oh,” Keith says numbly. No wonder the roar in his ears sounded so odd. It wasn’t his blood but Red, after all. 

“I’m okay, Red,” he says, focusing on the part of himself that burns bright as a hungry fire. The roars ease off. “Good kitty.”

“How about you, Keith?” Shiro asks. “Are you okay? That was a lot of heavy stuff you were talking about.”

“I don’t know,” Keith says. “I’m--I’ll be fine.”

Shiro gathers him up in his arms, gentle over the odd curves of their armor that make the embrace awkward. “We’ll get there,” Shiro whispers, hand petting Keith’s crown reassuringly. “We’ll be okay.”

-

Ulaz suggests some security updates that Pidge listens raptly to. Then he links up the bridge interface with that of the craft he used to board the castle.

“Kolivan,” Ulaz says. “I have made contact with the Paladins of Voltron and the Alteans.”

“That was a risk, Ulaz,” Kolivan says, voice altered by his mask. No audible surprise at the casual mention of a race previously thought extinct.

“I understand, Leader,” Ulaz says, “but I found your young Blade again.”

The mask falls. “Keith?” Kolivan says. Keith hasn’t heard his unfiltered voice in--Keith doesn’t know how long.

“I’m here, Leader,” he says, feeling an unexpected shyness, walks into frame. The others linger at the edges of the room, out of sight.

“You are an ally of Voltron?” Kolivan asks after a long moment.

“The Right Hand,” Keith says, fighting the urge to duck his head. The red armor was answer enough, but Kolivan prefers to have verbal confirmation when possible.

“You are well?” Kolivan asks, staring steadily down at Keith like he can discover whatever Keith might want to conceal. “You were not hurt?”

Wordlessly, Keith’s hand rises and brushes over the lower edge of his breastplate, remembers the old ache. Galra heal fast, Keith a little less quickly. “I was,” he says. “I healed. I am well. I apologize for not making contact before, I could not be sure of the security of communications.”

“Don’t wait so long next time,” Kolivan says. “Ulaz, what else is there to speak of?”

Ulaz turns silently and Shiro crosses the room to stand at Keith’s side. “This is Shiro, the leader of Voltron,” Ulaz says. “The Black Paladin.”

They look deeply at each other before they speak. Scarred and white-haired. Kolivan looks almost timeless, age indeterminate. Shiro looks--young, he decides, but not quite so young as Keith.

“My name is Kolivan,” he says finally. “The Blade of Marmora looks forward to working with you.”

-

“Are you okay?” Shiro asks as they settle down for the night cycle together. Shiro has night terrors--has had night terrors for all the time Keith has known him--but they do sleep better together. Keith thinks that maybe it’s because he unconsciously worries that Shiro’s been taken to fight or to see the druids when he’s not there. Or maybe he’s just gotten used to sleeping beside Shiro.

He doesn’t know what Shiro thinks. It’s not something they talk about, but it’s more an idle point of curiosity than a problem.

“I will be,” Keith says, tucking himself closer than he normally prefers. Sighs as Shiro’s warmth seeps delightfully into his body; sighs again when Shiro settles his arm over Keith’s shoulder, drawing him closer still and increasing the ways they share warmth. It’s comfortable and indulgent. But, Keith knows, he won’t give it up as long as Shiro wants it too. “You?”

“Me too,” Shiro says sleepily. It’s enough.

-

Shiro screams and is ejected from the Black Lion. Every instinct in Keith screams that something bad is coming, that whatever did this--Haggar? Zarkon? whichever underling acted in their service--is not gone and has not finished what they set out to do. But Shiro’s in trouble and the Black Lion hangs prone in a tractor beam.

He doesn’t recognize Zarkon, but even if he’d known he’s not sure it would have changed anything.

“You fight like a Galra,” Zarkon says, somehow smug-sounding.

“What of it?” Keith says, and prepares to face the next attack.

-

“If something happens to me,” Shiro says, “Keith--I want you to lead Voltron.”

They’re sitting pressed together before a cobbled-together fire. The Red Paladin’s bayard is worth something even outside of combat, it seems. Not enough to heal a wound that glows violet when they are castaways in a lonely and unknown corner of the universe, all but stranded with their drained and damaged lions.

Keith opens his mouth to speak. The only thing that comes out is a gasp, and he forces his mouth shut. His heart judders in its cage. His hand shakes for an opponent to face, but this is not a fight he can win with a knife. He shifts himself bodily, shaping an embrace that won’t torque or brush Shiro’s injury or the slow-gathering aches of his own body as he presses close.

“You don’t know what you’re asking,” Keith whispers. If he tries to speak any louder, his voice will shatter and break. He cannot leave Shiro helpless: not now, not ever, not even in the smallest and most harmless of ways. Presses a tiny, desperate kiss to Shiro’s brow. “You’re going to make it, Shiro.”

At this Shiro looks at Keith, but Keith is looking to the sky over his shoulder.

“Look,” Keith says, hope blooming, loosing his hold. “They found us--”

-

To take down Zarkon--it’s daunting, it’s a desperate plan with too many moving pieces. But they have to try. There is no option of continued tolerance or avoidance. They know this going in, have tried to stack the odds in their favor.

And yet Thace, the Blade imbedded on Zarkon’s command ship has gone radio silent.

“I’ll go,” Keith says quietly, when the other Blades hesitate. They go silent in a way that speaks painful volumes. Keith is a Blade, but in his armor he is more obviously a Paladin; his infiltration, if caught, would be devastating but it would not be revealing. “I’ll do it.”

“What?” the Princess says.

“I'll sneak onto Zarkon's ship,” Keith says. “I'm Galra, so I'll be able to interact with their technology. Pidge, you can rig up one of those pods with a cloaking device, right?”

“Well, yeah,” Pidge says.

“Going onto Zarkon's ship is a suicide mission,” Kolivan says, staring at Keith.

“Kolivan,” Keith says, meeting his gaze readily. “I know. I’m doing it.”

“Pidge, get that pod ready,” Shiro says, voice cutting through the moment. “Keith--let me know when you're on your way. I'll give you cover.”

They hug before they part: too tight, too affectionate for what the watching Blades know of Keith. It’s too revealing but no one speaks of it.

“Stay safe,” Shiro murmurs while their breastplates slide smoothly together. His hand strokes from Keith’s crown to linger at his nape. His mouth is so close to Keith’s that it would take the smallest of movements to shape a kiss out of shared air. Neither of them moves closer, yet neither of them moves to part.

“You too,” Keith murmurs back, arms tight enough around Shiro’s waist to imagine his body’s heat through the flightsuit. Tries to make it a part of himself that he can carry with him when they are apart.

Finally, they let go. They all have their own parts in the plan.

-

They fight Zarkon and win, or close enough to it. But Voltron falls apart, aching and drained, and the Black Lion is dead in the water. Keith and Pidge peel away from the others to tow it back to the Castle. When they land, Keith knows that something has gone wrong. Possibly irreparably wrong. Shiro isn’t responding to any hails. The Black Lion lies still in its hangar--it regains none of its energy as the other lions do.

“Shiro?” Keith calls desperately, repeatedly, crossing the hangar from the Red Lion at a run. Fear is a palpable, aching weight in his chest. Distantly, he hears the others’ footsteps pick up the pace, following at a distance. “Shiro?”

They catch up to him as he pries the Black Lion’s jaws open, passes through its airlock to the pilot’s seat. It’s an empty space. There is only the Black Bayard, nestled into its nook.

Chatter picks up from the others, scattering to check the cargo hold, but Keith hears none of it. His feet carry him numbly out of the Black Lion until he can look over it.

“I’m coming, Shiro,” he promises. “I’ll find you.”

The Black Lion does nothing, but it seems to wearily hear Keith’s promise.

“I won’t give up on you.”

**Author's Note:**

> Title is a paraphrase of a line ("I will love thee still, my dear,/While the sands o’ life shall run") Robert Burns' "My Love is a Red, Red Rose," because I memorized that in high school and am still in love with it.  
> I'm over on tumblr as xerampelinaekiss if anyone's interested in talking voltron.


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